Chandigarh, June 15
Once a scheme run with the help of “Golden Hearts”, the first-ever experiment to sponsor technical education of rural students in the country, is running out of steam with Punjabi University, Patiala, unable to touch the hearts of the donors in the same manner as before.

The university had with the help of Punjabi NRI donors started a “Golden Heart” scheme whereby technical education of rural students who had studied in government schools was sponsored by Punjabi NRIs at Yadavindra College of Engineering on the university campus in Talwandi Sabo. Students were admitted after Class X and prepared for two years so that they could be admitted to the mechanical, computer science and electronics and communication engineering streams.

Six years down the line, the first batch of nearly 60 students each in all three streams are going to pass out this month. While these students were able to get sponsorships, those in the five remaining batches in all three schemes as well as new admissions may not be so lucky.

Under the scheme, initiated by former Punjabi University Vice-Chancellor Swarn Singh Boparai, NRIs sponsored rural students for a six-year period at a cost of Rs 2.25 lakh per child. Boparai was also able to procure donations from Rotary International, which supplied computers and other equipment to the engineering college.

A visit to the engineering college at Talwandi Sabo revealed that the future of the scheme is uncertain. Engineering college officials said every year the university transferred around Rs 4 crore for the scheme into a separate account. This has not been done for 2009-10 “despite several reminders” and is now pending for 2010-11 also. Officials claimed they had come to know that the kitty under the scheme had been reduced to Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 crore.

Boparai attributes this state of affairs to the inability of the university authorities to meet the donors. “Even if the donors meet the authorities the latter do not have anything to say to them”, he said, adding the scheme needed hard work and humility to make it a success. He went on to say: “ It is not easy to beg. However, I regarded it as an honour as I was doing it for helpless rural students”.

University Dean and resource mobilisation cell head AS Chawla, when contacted, said there had been a drastic reduction in the donations coming in under the scheme. “I do not know what is going to happen”, he said.The university had introduced paid seats in the engineering college last year and the money received from this fee would be used to subsidise the education of rural students. Dr Chawla said there was no proposal to enlarge the “Golden Heart” sponsorship scheme.

University Vice-Chancellor Jaspal Singh, who said he would not like to comment on the observations of the former VC, said the scheme was “overall okay” as new donors were coming after the old ones had discontinued donations. He said new donors were being approached and that the university had recently decided to put up account statements of the scheme on its website. The VC said there was no question of discontinuing the scheme.

Jalandhar, June 15
Acknowledging the expertise of Punjabi farmers in making the state the “food bowl of the country”, Ethiopia now wants them to replicate this success in their country. Only 43 per cent of the total land mass of the country was currently under cultivation and the African country has invited farmers to lease huge tracts of arable land in various parts of the country and turn them into green lush fields.

Ethiopian Ambassador Gennet Zewide and Minister for Capacity Building Tefera Walwa, said today that farmers could tap vast agricultural resources available in their country, ample rainfall, power surplus and good quality irrigation network to their advantage. Moreover, the fertility rate of land was over six times that in Punjab, Zewide said. They were in the city on the invitation of the Confederation of Potato Seed Farmers (POSCON), who had shown interest in going there.

Zewide said 1. 7 million hectares were already with the government for allotment in the diverse agro-ecological zones in their country which were ideal to grow almost all crops, including cotton, wheat, pulses, oilseeds and sugarcane. Raising livestock was also a good option with ready markets all around, she said.

Under its user-friendly policy, the country would not charge any lease from farmers for three years and all heavy machinery and inputs required for farming and allied operations could be imported from any country, including India, without duty. Similarly, there would be no duties if the entire produce were exported to India, she said.

In addition to this, there was an option of availing easy loans up to 70 per cent of the project cost and all necessary clearances took only between one to four hours. Labour was also cheap in the countryside, she added. POSCON patron and former Agriculture Minister Surinderpal Singh Thamanwal said farming was fast becoming an unviable proposition in th state.

Raikot, June 15
The Air Force and the police had a tough time to control the crowd that had gathered at the crash site to see the wreckage of MiG 21 here today.

About 100 policemen were deployed to contain the crowd. Mediapersons were manhandled to keep them away from the site. The IAF authorities snatched their cameras and any cooperation was refused. They were refused to click shots of the wreckage. The cameras of three journalists of TV channels were seized by them and were returned to them after over two hours.

The IAF authorities held up a scribe of a Hindi newspaper and handed him over to the Raikot police to get a case register against him for obstructing them to perform their duty. However, the scribe was later let off by Raikot DSP Prithipal Singh.

The scene become unsavory after the police resorted to a mild canecharge on the crowd on orders of the IAF authorities. 

Ludhiana, June 15
It is not Raikot alone that remembers an IAF pilot forever. A small village in the district-Saharan Majra-too remembers the sacrifice of a pilot, who laid down his life and saved this village four decades ago.

The sacrifice of the IAF pilot, Kuldip Singh Johal, dates back to August 21, 1962. His plane caught fire when he was flying over Saharan Majra village, 35 km from Raikot where the crash took place today. Despite officers from the Halwara Air Force station asking him to bail out, he preferred to ensure the safety of the village first and took the plane away from the populated areas.

When he succeeded in reaching the open fields, it was too late for him to eject. He was charred to death in the fireball. His supreme sacrifice has not been forgotten by the villagers, who pay tributes to him every year.

Despite receiving no help from the government for the past many years, residents of Saharan Majra have been remembering the pilot, who reportedly opted to get charred in his fighter plane, full with ammunition, than to bail out. “A committee organises a path at the place of the accident and donations have been utilised for constructing a room in his memory at a government school of the village. Another memorial was constructed at the crash spot,” said Raghbir Singh Saharan Majra, a villager.

Fatehgarh Sahib, June 15
Malnutrition among milch cattle has affected milk production in the area besides leading to increase in the prices of livestock. There has been an increase of Rs 10,000 to 15,000 is in prices of cows and buffaloes.

Earlier, the cost of a cow having a milk yield of 18 to 22 litres was around Rs 35,000, which has now gone up to Rs 50,000. A buffalo with 10 to 12 litres of milk yield used to cost Rs 20,000 earlier, but the price has now increased to around Rs 35,000. The prices vary depending upon the milk-yielding capacity of the animals. The increase has been more pronounced over the past one-and-a-half year.

On the other hand, the milk-yielding capacity of cattle reared by progressive farmers, most of whom have more than 100 cows at each of their dairy farms, has increased. But small dairy farmers have failed to witness a similar trend due to various reasons, including lack of services of veterinary doctors, inbreeding, shortage of green fodder and medication by quacks.

“Though the number of cattle owned progressive farmers is not very large, the milk yield of animals owned by them is very high,” said veterinary doctor Gurcharan Singh in Fatehgarh Sahib. However, a lot still needed to be done to meet the growing demand of milk, he added.

Veterinary doctors said their advice to the farmers was to sell off their non-performing cattle and acquire high-yielding cows. Now most of the progressive farmers had cows instead of buffaloes and they got around 25 to 40 litre milk from each cattle every day, they added.

A dairy farmer of Ghumandgarh village in Fatehgarh Sahib has a cow that gave 53 litre milk during a recent animal fest at Karnal in Haryana.

Charanjit Singh, a dairy farmer of Sirhind, said the cows were easy to handle and needed much less care and medication as compared to buffaloes. However, milk of buffaloes fetched more money in the market as it contained a much higher fat content as compared to cow’s milk.

Normally a cow’s milk contains around 3.5 per cent fat, whereas a buffalo’s milk has 6-7 per cent fat content.

Farmers said the use of oxytocin injections, lack of nutritious fodder, rise in temperature and medication by quacks had increased infertility among cattle.

“Various factors, including use of oxytocin and other medicines and inbreeding, are responsible for increased infertility among cattle. People use injections to get more milk and animals suffer after every two or three lactations,” said Surjeet Singh, a farmer.

Due to shortage of good quality green fodder, farmers were forced to give dry fodder laced with intoxicants to their cattle so as to get more milk. It increased the yield temporarily, but the health of cattle got adversely affected in the bargain, he added.

Patiala, June 15
Under the banner of the Focal Point Industrial Association, industries operating from the Patiala Focal Point have expressed objections over the move of the Punjab Small Scale Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC) to allow residential activity in the Focal Point area.

Condemning the PSIEC step to auction residential plots in the Focal Point area, association representatives have decided to take up the matter with the state government.

“The coming up of residential structures would create problem for us because the occupants of the residential houses will then start complaining about pollution in the area due to industry”, said association president Gurpreet Singh.

Giving the background of the issue, Gurpreet stated that industrial activity in the Focal Point area started in 1992 but it witnessed development only during the previous Congress regime.

Gurpreet claimed that since the land prices in the area are around Rs 1000 per sq yard, the PSIEC is interested in selling various vacant plots in residential category because residential plots would be auctioned at much higher price. Association general secretary Ashwani Kumar claimed that the PSIEC has initiated the process to sell off the land, which was kept reserved for the health centre and park, for the residential activity, while adding that they have documentary proofs and maps to substantiate their claims.

“If houses come up in the area, it is but obvious that people would object to the industrial activity and ultimately industry would have to face the wrath of the authorities”, he stated. 

Mohali, June 15
Municipal Council authorities are planning to remove the security gates that had been erected in various parts of the town following the pressure on the civic body to provide watchmen to man these gates during night.

To begin with, the contractor was asked to remove all advertisements from the gates as he had failed to arrange security guards. Notably, no advertisement was seen on the gates today.

The council wrote to the contractor on June 10 that the latter had failed to write the names of municipal councillors and house numbers (falling in that area) on the gates according to the agreement; moreso, no security guards had been provided. The contractor was also told that no advertisements could be displayed on these gates till the matter was settled.

Council president Kulwant Singh said the councillors and representatives of welfare bodies were pressurising the civic body to direct the contractor to arrange guards even when no such condition was mentioned in the agreement. They wanted an immediate result that was not possible.

It was likely that these gates be removed. Not only the issue of security guards had been discussed during the council meetings hitherto, the substandard material and the poor design of the gates had drawn criticism as well.

Nearly 39 security gates were installed by a private company on the directions of the council in various parts of the town. There was a proposal to put up 30 more gates in areas that were not covered earlier.

Most gates remained unguarded during night defeating the very purpose for which these were installed.

As per the plan, the gates were to be closed during the night leaving just one gate open that was to be manned by a guard who would be maintaining a register to enter the names of persons entering that particular area. And the guard was to be deployed after carrying out his police verification. 

Chandigarh, June 15
The Punjab Police has ordered a record number of over 4,500 promotions, mainly of constabulary and further up to the inspector level, breaking a stagnation at various levels thereby boosting the morale of the force.

DGP PS Gill said today that these promotions were the result of the directions of the Deputy CM , who had asked the police to identify impediments adversely affecting the morale of the force and systematically remove those causes.

He said on finding that the denial of timely promotions due to various administrative hurdles like the non-finalisation of seniority lists was creating delays and therefore the focus was first to finalise seniority lists and then methodically remove other hurdles. A special call was constituted to liaise with the Personnel, Legal Remembrancer and Advocate General Office.

The DGP said from January this year, a total 494 sub-inspectors had been promoted as inspectors of which 387 promotions hade been made in the executive police and 104 such promotions had been made in the armed police. He said 835 ASIs had been promoted as sub-inspectors, 1,046 head constables as ASIs and 1,600 constables had been made head constables. Besides this, two promotions were in executive clerical cadre and one in finger print bureau. He said more promotions would be made in the future also. 

Chandigarh, June 15
The Punjab State Board of Technical Education and Industrial Training will begin the process of online counselling from June 24 for about 32,000 seats available in various trades in polytechnic colleges across the state.

The board had conducted the Joint Entrance Test for admissions to polytechnics and the results were declared on May 31. The online counselling will be held in three phases with the first phase starting from June 24 to June 29. The second phase is from July 10 to July 15 and the final phase from July 25 to July 3.

Before taking part in the counselling, candidates are required to deposit a fee of Rs 500 in any of the branches of Punjab National Bank and HDFC Bank through out the state and Chandigarh. Candidates may log on to the board’s counselling website www.punjabtech.gov.in.

The detailed schedule regarding the counselling is also available on the board’s website www.punjabteched.com and www.punjabteched.net. For any clarification, candidates may call on following helplines: 8054209562, 8054209560, 8054209489, 8054209488, 8054209485. 

Chandigarh, June 15
This might as well be the beginning of a ‘puls’ating revolution in the country.Following the announcement of a 15 to 30 per cent hike in the minimum support price (MSP) for pulses last week, the Union Government has also decided to give farmers an incentive of Rs 5 per kilogram for selling their crop to government agencies.

“This was done to give a benefit solely to farmers without reflecting the market price of the pulses,” said PK Basu, IAS, Secretary Agriculture, Government of India, adding that the incentive would be given to farmers through the procurement agencies.

He said these initiatives were taken at the behest of Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to ensure enhanced pulse production and bridge the historic demand-supply gap, in order to reign in the prices of these important food commodities.

On June 9, the government had announced a substantial increase in the MSP of pulses with an aim to give a boost to the production of pulses, as also to stem the spiralling prices. The MSP of Arhar was increased to Rs 3,000, Moong Rs 3,170 and Urad at Rs 2,900.

At present, India is unable to meet its soaring demand for pulses, and imports over 3.5 million tonnes every year.

“Our average production is 14.5 million tonnes, but we are aiming for production of at least 16.5 million tonnes this year. If we are able to achieve it, it would be a new record,” Basu said.

Basu said the procurement machinery too has been spruced to ensure that the government, through NAFED, was the major player in procurement of pulses, and not the private players as had been the scenario in the past years.

“The allocation set aside for pulses programme is about 900 crore this year,” Basu said. This represents an almost eight time increase from 105 crore in 2007-08.

Talking to The Tribune, Basu said the move was expected to boost pulse production in Punjab and he suggested farmers take up cultivation of pulses in a big way.

“The state had been trying to diversify out from paddy for several years, and the pulse mission is a good opportunity to do so. Once, Punjab used to be a major producer of pulses. I think the time has come to revive it,” Basu said.

“Cultivation of paddy is having a negative impact on the groundwater tables and as a national policy we are shifting paddy cultivation to the east which is climatically more suitable to the cultivation of water guzzlers like paddy and sugar cane,” he added.

Chandigarh, June 15
Punjab’s former IAS officer BR Bajaj and Pankaj Bhardwaj — the advocate at the centre of the Rathore case — were today granted interim anticipatory bail by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the Amritsar land scam.

Bhardwaj had moved the high court during the ongoing summer vacation, following the rejection of his anticipatory bail plea by the Amritsar district court. His petition, along with Bajaj’s plea, was placed before Justice RK Garg of the high court this morning. Issuing notice of motion to the state of Punjab on the petitions, Justice Garg also granted interim relief to the petitioners.

Bajaj’s case now stands adjourned to June 28, when the high court reopens after the summer break, while Bhardwaj’s petition will come up for hearing the next day.

Bharadwaj is one of the 32 accused in the multi-crore scam, while Bajaj’s name does not figure in the FIR. 

Chandigarh, June 15
Chief Judicial Magistrate JS Sidhu today directed the CBI to investigate the irregularities in allowing the plying of AC buses allegedly run by the Badal family.The complainant, Arvind Thakur, filed the case against Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, former Punjab Governor JF Rodrigues and home-cum-transport secretary.

The court directed the CBI to file status report under Section 210 of the CrPC on October 5.

Thakur stated in the complaint that in 2007 the administration had granted permit to private buses for plying in Chandigarh. He alleged that these buses belonged to the Badal family.

The complainant has also attached a copy of a letter, which was written by Badal to Rodrigues seeking permission for allowing the AC buses to enter the city.

The letter was written by the CM on September 5, 2009, to the Governor regarding the plying of AC buses in city.

The administration then granted 73 permits for operating AC buses from various destinations in Punjab to Chandigarh and vice versa.

The complainant stated that it was violation of Section 74 of the Punjab Reorganization Act 1966, according to which the private transport system can be allowed after permission from the Centre. It was also a violation of Section 100 (3) of the Motor Vehicle Act.